


Thank You

by Nihonkikuasa211



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, Drug Addiction, Gen, POV Original Character, Past Drug Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 05:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6271666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihonkikuasa211/pseuds/Nihonkikuasa211
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young addict finds comfort in her last moments from a certain doctor in Angles Memorial Hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thank You

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know very much about addiction or the effects of certain substances, so please forgive me if I made a mistake.

_Thank You_

His hand was still around her own. Lauren hitched her breath, certain that when she would open her eyes the hand would be gone. That she would die alone. But it was still there.

            It was still there. Lauren slowly opened her bloodshot blue eyes, swollen from crying and her throat raw from screaming as she stared at the worn clothes that stank of body odor and vomit. She had once been a promising young college student, hoping to pursue a math degree. But then the nightmare of cocaine and later heroin had thrown away whatever life she had. The bonds that she had, any love that she had left inside her heart had been shattered as the drug that she knew – she _knew_ but didn’t think it would actually happen – would be her end shattered and destroyed everything. Lauren almost wanted to touch the hand that was in her own. It was so _real._ It was so unlike her own shaking hands, or others that were stained with crack or coke. They were clean. She remembered of how it had felt waking up inside of the too-bright room. It stung her eyes, almost making her blind and cringe at the sound of the voices that appeared too loud.

            Then, another voice appeared. It was a quiet voice. A voice used to the kind of cases in the ER, she supposed, and Lauren ran her hands through her short brown hair before her eyes squeezed open, and she stared at the scrubs-wearing doctor standing in front of her.

            He was around medium height. And dark. If Lauren hadn’t been high, she would have flirted with him a little. But her mind was too exhausted, too spent on whatever had occurred to cause her to wake up in the ER in the first place. _Dimples,_ she thought absent-mindedly as she saw the creases in his cheeks. Her interest peaked when she saw another doctor wearing the same scrubs appeared, with lighter hair and was looking at her with apprehension – as if he hadn’t seen a young junkie before. But her eyes landed on the doctor’s hands, which were in his pocket and caressing something.

            _A sober chip._ The short-haired patient could see of how the other doctor looked toward the other one in concern, his dark-as-melted-chocolate-eyes following him as he disappeared from sight. _I tried that once. Had enough to create a small bracelet._ The humor was lost to her, however. Lauren had been told so many times that she wasn’t trying – that she wasn’t doing enough to kick the habit. As if it was easy enough to do. No one understood.

            “I’m sorry to tell you this but…” Lauren immediately wiped her head around to see the doctor talking seriously. His expression was somber. Lauren cringed, reminded of the expression her mother – who had given up on her of course, and told her that she was dead to her until she quit acting like a delinquent – had made when she was caught high in the sixth rehabilitation program. “Your drugs of choice are heroin and cocaine, right?”

            “Why do you care?” Lauren spat, certain that she would hear yet another lecture. _Don’t throw your life away, there’s so much left to live for, blah blah blah._ Then her mind halted. The words that he used… She looked at the doctor, who was looking at her with _that_ expression – one who –

            “After we revived you, we took an ultrasound of your heart. You’ve used so much that you could have heart failure at any time.” _Dr. Savetti,_ Lauren read as the doctor looked at her with somber eyes. His voice almost choked. “I’m sorry.”

            “What do you mean?” Lauren looked at him incredulously, certain that she had misheard him. _There’s no way…I stopped using cocaine and got into heroin instead!_ “There’s got to be some mistake,” she continued to say, even though she began to feel a tightening in her chest. “There’s no way that this could be happening to me! I’m _healthy_! I’m twenty-seven years old, and not some damn –!”

            “Long-term drug usage causes health effects, Lauren.” The young patient swallowed, feeling more fear than anger at the sound of her name. How long it had been since anyone had called her that? Without any judgement? Without…any disgust or sickening mourning? The doctor’s eyes locked onto hers, and the short-haired woman could see nothing but truth in his eyes.

            “How long…?” she rasped.

            To his credit, the doctor didn’t look away. “Well, you haven’t been eating very much these past few weeks, a side effect of heroin. I would say soon…and –”

            “Tonight?” Lauren whispered, hating of how she sounded like a crying child.

            “No. Not tonight.” Tears began streaking down Lauren’s face, causing pain to enter her eyes from the liquid. It had been such a long time since she had cried. Such a long time that she had felt anything, besides the rush and feeling of the high, wondering when she would feel it again, feel so _good_ and –

            “This wasn’t supposed to happen!” Lauren wailed as she took her head between her hands and started rocking back and forth. Her skinny body began to wrack with sobs, and a half-fulfilled scream almost tore from her throat. She could almost hear her bones creak. “I was supposed…to…be fine. I had it under c-control…!”

            “All people think that.” Lauren raised her head and saw that the doctor was still talking to her. No judgement. Tears began to fall into her mouth anew as Lauren realized the unspoken truth. “We all do. I did.”

            “What a-about your friend?” Lauren rasped. The doctor looked at her uncomprehendingly. “The one who was touching his sober chip like it was his drug of choice.” She almost wanted to laugh at the look of shock and fear on the doctor’s face, his nametag moving erratically as he looked back and forth across the ER. “It takes one to know one, Dr. Dimples.”

            A rare smirk appeared on the doctor’s face. “You’re the second one to comment on my dimples.” His face turned somber again as he glanced at the place where his friend had been standing in. “It’s been…six months since he’s used. No one except his brother and I know of course, so…”

            “You two look good together,” Lauren whispered hoarsely. A sudden urge to giggle like a child at the incredulous and annoyed expression on – _Mario’s_ face made her lips crack a little as a smile formed. “It…takes a good friend to be there…when you use, or stop for the first time.” She swallowed. “My friends, and everyone really, abandoned me when it became too much. So you don’t have to call anyone or anything.” Lauren looked away to make certain that Dr. Dimples wouldn’t notice that she was trying her best not to cry. “You can just dump me in a dumpster, and no one would care.”

            “We treat all bodies here with respect, Lauren.” Again with the name. Again, the young drug addict looked at the doctor who had been in the same place as she and had _won_. “As they had been in life.”

            Lauren’s lower lip trembled. “Including people…like us?”

            “Especially.” The doctor looked at her with understanding, their eyes connecting for a moment before a sound came from the small black electronic device beeped. “I have to go,” he stated with a glance at the center stage of the ER. “But –”

            “Can you stay with me?” Lauren was determined to appear strong, to act as if she wasn’t afraid. “When I die?”

            A choked sob escaped from her, the sobs choking in her throat as the tears flowed and as bloodshot blue met dark brown. The doctor appeared about to say something, but he opened his mouth vacantly.

            “Yeah,” was his only reply. Lauren pretended to not notice of how it cracked.

* * *

 

            Lauren had expected the hand to have gone away when she had woken. But it was there. Mario – she had asked him what his name was, and he had told her – was still holding his hand in hers, and Lauren looked up at the doctor that had…helped her, in a way.

            “Your friend is lucky to have you, you know.” Her voice was quiet, almost inaudible as she looked up at him from the hospital bed. “People like us…often become like me.” Her voice choked, and Laruen’s grip tightened onto Mario’s hand. “And my only comfort is that you’re here with me.”

            Mario’s eyes blinked, and she could tell that he was trying to not allow his emotions to overwhelm him. “I’ll claim you.” He licked his lips, and swallowed as he looked down at the dying patient. It looked as if he was looking down at his former self and not at the former pathetic self that she was. “I’ll claim you, and you don’t have to be buried in a plot without any name. A name…etched on your grave.”

            “Thank you,” Lauren whispered. Tears, warm and thick, began to drip onto the sheets, and she could the unspoken pain on Mario’s face as her breathing became shallow. _I didn’t…think it would happen this…fast._ Her hand’s grip started to weaken, and her eyes closed slowly as she only became aware of the gentle hand holding hers. “Thank you, Dr. Dimples.”

            She gasped and looked up at him with her eyes drowning in pain.

             “I’m grateful to have …gotten to meet you…Dr. Mario Savetti.”

            _Thank you,_ she thought. The hand felt so warm and gentle. Even as she felt her sight disappear and couldn’t feel Mario’s hand, a song whispered in her mind. It was rough, and it was clear that whoever was singing hadn’t properly sung before. She remembered it, from a long ago memory. A young girl who loved math and hated those kind of things had been spellbound by the song sung by a chorus. It didn’t at all sound like what she heard before, the Latin words echoing in her dying mind. Still…

            It was beautiful.

_“Pei Jesu, Pei Jesu, Pei Jesu,_

_Qui tollis peccata mundi_

_Dona eis requiem sempiternam.”_

            _I…don’t…deserve such a beautiful song._

_Beautiful…songs aren’t meant for people like me._

Peace. A sense that she wasn’t alone. Belonging where she thought that she didn’t belong.

            A young woman by the name of Lauren felt more at peace than she had in a long time as she died.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought the song fit this kind of story.


End file.
